Ranna, The Sleeper
by feensta
Summary: With one touch of my hand you might sleep for a thousand years, when I speak you might sleep for 10,000 years, and when I sing you might well sleep on unknowing until the end of time." This is the story of Ranna, The Sleeper.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: It's all mine---err.actually none of it is.everything belongs to the brilliant Garth Nix  
  
Prologue: Blurred visions in ice, uncertain futures, the creation of the world. All these things I saw, heard, and felt. In the beginning there where nine. Orannis, Yreal, Astareal, Saraneth, Beleager, Dyriun, Kibeth, Mosreal, and myself, Ranna. Each of the nine had raw and completely unrestrained powers. Some of the power was destroyed, some created, and some simply shifter the time of sands in one way or another. I was a shifter, but not over time itself, but in what people did with the time that was given to them. With a touch of my finger you might sleep for 1,000 years, when I spoke perhaps for 10,000 years, and when I sang you might sleep unknowing until the end of time. I have other gifts as well, but always I am remembered as Ranna, the sleeper. Smallest and least powerful of the seven creators. Not so well remembered is that I was the most clever, the most cunning, and the most forgiving of them all. How few of my own creations remember that it was me making spell and sword to bind and break Orannis. And how few remember when I created the first life on this world, a small blue flower growing from the ashes. Ashes from when the world was burned and destroyed, long before this new world began...  
  
( Sorry this is so short but it's just a prologue----please review ( 


	2. A Threat In the North

Disclaimer: I owe everything to Garth Nix..Great guy =)  
  
Please Note: The --- signifies Ranna's memory of events  
  
that happened before the story began.  
  
Chapter One: Threat in the North  
  
A bitter, cold, and biting wind whipped through my unruly mass of blonde curls, and chilled me to the bone as I raced my horse Nulea across the southern plain. Blinded by the oncoming blizzard I pulled my hood closer to my face. I often wondered if I was heading around in circles, or going north as I was supposed to be. As I rode on hating my fortune, I thought back on the mysterious events that occurred before my wild ride across the plains.  
  
----Sitting on the wooden bridge I laughed as I repeatedly dipped my feet in the shining and sparkling water. With the sun warming my back and the wind cooling my face; it seemed that life was perfect. Shaking my mane of hair I leaned back on the worn wooden planks of the bridge and tried to soak up all the heat from the sun. As I was almost asleep, a large cracking noise split the air and shook the earth. Suddenly there was a large flash of pure white light, that was so white it shone more brightly than the sun. When the light was gone a small pale man stood before me with smoke drifting off his semi-transparent body into the afternoon sky. As he moved towards me his body seemed to twist and reshape itself into many different people. Quickly I recognized the work of Beleagar, my friend and one time companion.  
  
Ever so slowly, the sending walked over the bridge towards me. As it moved I noticed that in its shimmering left hand it tightly clutched a letter. It stood at my feet for a moment looking up at my face, and then reformed itself into a bow. It momentarily resumed its standing position and with its many faces looking in to my face, it spoke.  
  
"A correspondence from the Lord Beleager to the Lady Ranna via. Messenger sending."  
  
After seeing that I would not take the letter, the sending shoved it into my pale left hand and backed away towards the direction from whence it had come. When it reached its destination, the sending vanished with another bright flash of light leaving a cloud of white smoke behind it.  
  
With shaking fingers I broke the wax seal and slid the thick parchment out of its sheath.  
  
"To the most revered Lady Ranna;  
In the far north there has been a great  
disturbance in the charter. A ninth,  
most deadly spirit has arisen.  
It calls it self Orranis and has so far  
destroyed three of the villages on the  
Ratterlin. Please come with all due  
haste to the mountain Chamber of The  
Stars. There the council of the eight  
will be held for the fist time in an age  
to discuss what we must to in order to  
abolish this threat.  
  
We look for your arrival in four days  
-Lord Beleager  
Post. Script. Do not travel by magic,  
the destroyer then might discover that  
other spirits reside in this world.  
Make Haste"  
  
So great was my anger that another might destroy all the work that we had done, the letter burst into flames and drifted to the ground as light gray ash. The singing little song birds that had been so pleasurable to my ear a few moments before became suddenly intolerable. When I shouted "Silence!" all creatures fell to the earth in a deep and dreamless sleep.  
  
Charter marks spun in quick succession from my mind, to my hands, to the air in front of me. In a few short moments a beast, of which the likes of this earth had never seen before, stood on the ground before me. Graced with the gifts of speed, agility, and grace, the horse came into existence at my hand. -----  
  
As I continued my ride towards the mountains, my anger grew fueled by the steady pounding of Nulea's hooves on the snow-covered ground. When I reached the foot of the mountains I guided Nulea to a tree guarded grove and continued on foot down the long winding stone covered path to the chamber of the stars. Holding my breath I quickly and quietly crept down the long passage to the chamber. Right as I was pushing open the stone cold, wet, and moss covered door a strong arm grabbed me and pulled me back in to the shadows. My Last recollection was of a dark free magic pulling me into its shadow and metallic prison before I fainted.  
  
Please read and review =) . 


	3. Release and Realization

Disclaimer: Alas, only the story is mine, all else belongs to the one (and only) Garth Nix.Cheers!  
  
Someone spoil something.who me?.never!.finish reading Abhorsen before you read this JUST IN CASE though.  
  
*`*= a vision Ranna has of a different time, in this chapter it's the future  
  
Chapter Two: Release and Realization  
  
When I came out of the darkness, all I could feel was a cold and evil pressure in the back of my mind. My body was no longer mine to control. I instructed my body to move, and I instructed the chains that bound it to dissipate, but it was to no avail. In the back of my mind, I could also feel the cold pressure of death, and the dead. Glancing at the ground, I could see the remnants of many burial spells, and spells of banishment for horrible monsters. Whoever had taken me, lived in a crypt filled with the bodies of foul beasts. As I looked around the shadow filled room I was in, I noticed a dark hooded being sprawled on a dark red and musty lounge chair. As it lazily traced the faded flowering pattern across the bridge and arms of the chair, it seemed to realize it was being watched.  
It raised its yellow and gold flecked eyes to mine, and after a moment of glaring into the steely depths of my own eyes, winked.  
"You know," it began in a cold, dark voice, "I was beginning to think I was the only one here, but then I felt you, I've been waiting for you." It looked at me, critically, and laughed at my inability to speak, or even move in return. After a time, he waved his pale, long fingered spider like hand in my direction, and I again I was in control of myself.  
"I knew you were coming, I could feel it." He began, "In the far south, someone, or something used magic. Made something living. I've been following your weak insignificant power for four days. You can't be allowed to roam the earth of this Kingdom. With your disgusting living creatures, you might ruin all my plans. Everything you make, I simply must destroy, and I have neither the time nor the desire to do either, now sing for me slave."  
"Why do you destroy?" I growled at him, so he wouldn't detect my gift. "Because I am Orannis, the Destroyer, ad I must destroy.Now sing!"  
After only a few moments of my singing, the destroyer was sound asleep, his dark head titled back, he breathed deeply. I continued my tilting melody as I cautiously slipped out of my black snaking bonds, and eased my way towards the faint blue light at the end of the room. Squeezing through the small, wet, spiky, and rocky crack in the ceiling, I decided to lock this 'Orannis' in stone, to hold him there as long as I could.  
When this simple task was done, I ran ask fast as I could to the long winding downhill path. As I ran down towards the "Chamber of the Stars", I wondered if Orannis knew that there were others as well. If he could detect my magic, would he have been able to feel Beleager's sending when it came to me? Or did he think that the sending had been mine. As all these thoughts traversed my mind, I slipped, and skidded into the door to the chamber.  
It was a high, arching door, made of a dark blue fabric. Eight tiny stars of gold and silver where embroidered into the shimmering fabric and it seemed to radiate an effulgent light. The true magic of this door was not in its amazing beauty, or extraordinary resilience to evil. The door would hide itself. To one who did not aid in its creation, the door was just another rock in the wide jumble of rocks. Lightly touching my right index finger to the star that represented me, I whispered my name. The blue cloth reached out to me, and wrapped me in its soft embrace. Moments later I stood before the other eight spirits.  
"Your Late, Ranna."  
A few moments after I had finished telling them my tale, silence, and open jaws greeted me.  
"But does he know you left?" Kibeth prompted.  
"No, he was asleep, and he still is."  
"Good," said Beleager, " Ranna come with me."  
His tone did not invite argument or dispute, so I followed him into an adjoining room, one that was filled with sunlight, and clouds. The chamber of the sun.  
The chamber of the sun was the safest and most secure place that we had created. Everything that went on in that room, was undetectable to the outside world. Even Orannis in his stony, ice cold crypt couldn't feel us.  
  
"Ranna, can you tell me exactly where his crypt is?"  
"Of course, but why do you need to know, you can't go in after him, he'll kill you. His power is greater than anyone's I've ever felt."  
"I'm not, I'm going to be sending you!"  
"Me?" I asked incredulously.  
"Well not the real you of course, do you remember the sending I used to send your letter?"  
"Of course."  
"Well, I'm going to make a sending of you, it will be exactly like you in looks, size, voice, everything. From in here, you will be able to control its actions, and spy on Orannis with out actually being in there with him." He said with an excitement that I hadn't seen in him since we made the trees. His blue eyes were wide, and his mouth curled up in a joyful smile.  
"Brilliant! That's bloody perfect!" I exclaimed, my excitement almost matching his.  
With out further ado, we found the silver wires we needed and began to twist it into a human form, very much like my own.  
A few hours later, we sat back on our heels, and looked at the mess of wires in front of us. To me it looked like a jumble of silver wire and blue ties. I could vaguely make out a head, arms, and legs. Yet my old friend looked at it like it was priceless, beautiful beyond reckoning.  
Moments later, we stood, arms stretched around the silver form, holding hand on either side of her body. Charter marks formed in our minds and left our bodies in torrents of shining gold light. They sped to the wires, and traveled up and down them in blinding streams of light, the magic seeping in to the core of the silver. The light eventually became to strong to look at, but the marks kept coming, flowing out of us as one.  
After what seemed to be many hours of bone tiring magic, the flow of symbols dwindled, then halted. Opening my eyes, I found myself facing myself. She looked like me in every possible aspect. Her gray eyes, her blonde curls, her height paleness, everything, even her clothes. Fearing that Orannis would soon be released from my spell, I sent her into the cave, and controlled her actions from the safety of the Chamber of the Sun.  
After many hours he awoke, and seemed to be lost and confused. Looking at what he thought to be me, he asked how long he had been asleep. Using my voice to the breaking point of magic, I told him he was resting with the dead. He slept on the bodies of dead beasts.  
He must have realized my power, or maybe the sending couldn't convey my power, whatever the reason was, he stalked over and tried to throw her into the stone cold wall. Her body reformed like liquid around his hand, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not move her body. On closure inspection, he saw the marks flowing through her body like wild fire. He could sense the magic of Beleager and myself in her, and he was angry. He was beyond angry, he was livid. His yellow eyes closed into red burning slits. Looking up the to the dripping roof, his voice filled with free magic poison, he whispered "Tell me, Ranna, where are the others?"  
"There are no others."  
"You lie, I will find you, I found you once before."  
"There are no others." I tried in my most persuasive voice.  
"You can't lie to me, I will find you."  
"There are no-"  
"And I will destroy you, I am the destroyer-and all will be destroyed."  
  
*`* Flames reached out of a sphere of Liquid fire, threatening to consume the seven people, and one dog around it. The world around them was burned, and ridden with ash. *`*  
  
What was that? I wondered. Was it a distant future of a long forgotten past? I needed to find out. I thought of the pale girl with the dark features whose face I had plainly seen. With all my thought and will bent on her I saw again.  
  
*`* All was lost now. There was nothing else to do or try. She had seen the Beginning, and seen Orannis bound. *`*  
  
Orannis must be bound.But how? This is the beginning.and then eight of us must have the power to stop him.but how?  
  
*`* A pale boy, possessed with some unknown evil stood before an equally evil man. In a high pitched voice he began to sing:  
"The ninth was strong  
And fought with might  
But lone Orannis  
Was put out of the light,  
Broken in two  
And buried under the hill,  
Forever to lie there,  
Wishing us ill."  
*`*  
  
A/N: and here we have it, after three months.I'm so sorry about the delay.and I promise next update will not be in three months.Cheers!  
  
REVIEW!!!!! 


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